The Innkeepers (2012)
VERDICT:
9/10 Graveyard Shifts
So much for me getting a good night’s sleep.
Now, you’re not gonna believe it, but The Innkeepers is about two innkeepers working at an old hotel on the weekend before it’s set to be demolished. Now, there’s two things worth noting about this hotel: business is non-existent except for the three guests staying there, and word on the street is that it’s haunted. “Haunted by what?” you ask, as you cower under your afghan. Well by the ghost of Madeline O’Malley of course, the gal who hung herself on the third floor after her fiancee stood her up at the altar. And what do these painfully bored innkeepers do? Why, break out the ghost huntin’ gear, of course! So what starts out as two days of fun and games soon takes a turn for the terrifying as they start poking around and waking up restless spirits.
Talk about your all-time shitty weekends.
So the first and last movie I saw by writer/director Ti West was The House of the Devil. Much like The Innkeepers, that didn’t sound like much from the description either. Girl takes a babysitting gig at a creepy mansion, girl sticks around despite her better judgment, and before you know it, girl has to stop a Satanic cult from going all Rosemary’s Baby on her. It’s a been-there, done-that premise for anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the genre, and the same goes for small-time Ghostbusters getting curious in a haunted mansion. Usually one of the worst jump-off points for any horror movie, but nevertheless, it feels new.
The best thing about Ti West is that he knows what works for horror fans and he knows what most certainly doesn’t. The last thing we need is more cheap scares and loud noises, stupid characters deserve their stupid deaths, and, let’s not kid ourselves, torture porn is on the outs. What does work for horror fans is some cold, hard suspense and some characters who are at least smart enough so that we’re not screaming at them from the couch. As you might have already guessed, that’s what Ti West gives us, and he gives it to us in spades.
As for the scares, the Ti West breakdown is as such:
Step 1: Ever so gradually and ever so quietly build up to that moment where the audience knows something’s gonna happen. Step 2: Hold the shot on whatever it is that’s gonna scare the tar out of these poor souls. And, Step 3: Drag out the suspense by royally delaying the scare so that it feels like an effing eternity for anyone and everyone who’s watching. Then, when the audience is on the verge of breaking their jaws from clenching, release the scares to full effect.
As far as film making goes, this is a goddamn torture tactic. Remember in Elf when Buddy keeps winding the Jack-in-the-Boxes and keeps getting poop scared out of him every time one jumps out? Weird analogy, I know, but that’s exactly what this is like, only not so holly jolly. Although, like I said, the scares aren’t cheap. Each time it happens, there’s always this one little second before the alarms start going off and characters start soiling themselves. It’s that one little second that makes all the difference because it’s just enough time to truly take in how terrifying the thing you’re seeing actually is. It’s the same tactic they used in The Ring when they showed that chick in the closet for the first time, and holy hell, is it jaw-on-the-floor effective.
It’s also pretty light on the gore, but a little gore goes a long way. Write that one down, kids.
But the weird thing about it is that there’s very little plot here. Most of the story revolves around minor encounters with the beyond and a whole lot of dicking around between our leads at the front desk. Nothing of real otherworldly significance actually happens until the last 20 or 30 minutes, and the reason I didn’t care is because it was fun watching them dick around.
Now, these are characters that very well could have been caricatures, the kind of folk who don’t have the common sense to stay the eff out of a basement when a medium who just spoke to a dead chick tells you to stay the eff out of a basement. What saves them from that awful, awful fate is that their personalities and curiosities are believable. Since there’s nothing downright insane that happens in the first two Acts, it’s easy to forgive their faults in the ways of self-preservation. I mean, they’re into ghost hunting, they work at a supposedly haunted hotel, so why wouldn’t they dig deeper when Madeline O’Malley starts reaching out? Sure, I’d probably peace out on the first night and come back the next morning with a wrecking ball, but I’m not them, and for once, I actually get why they go to the lengths they do. They’re not idiots, they’re just curious to a fault.
They’re really funny, too, which was a nice surprise. Most of the scares in the first half of the movie are actually made up of them scaring each other either intentionally or otherwise, and each time time it goes off without a hitch, it just makes you like them more. We’ve all been scared by our friends the way these two friends scare each other. Very interesting blend of horror and humor, even for what we’re used to getting from horror comedies. Solid performances from Sara Paxton and Pat Healy, too.
And nice to see Kelly McGillis in a movie again. Where the heck’s she been?
For a genre that tends to be crippled and written off because each new movie is just like the last one, only worse, it’s hard not to admire all the tricks you can teach an old dog with the right person behind the wheel. The Innkeepers ain’t scoring too high in the originality department, but it’s amazing how little that actually matters. Since the scares aren’t cheap, since the characters aren’t stupid, and since Ti West has flat-out mastered the art of tension-building, I was looking a hot mess during this thing. Seriously, I had to force myself to multitask on Facebook just to distract me from having to suffer the full force of how scary this was. This, boys and girls, is why you don’t watch horror movies by yourself. I thought I’d already learned that lesson with The Orphanage, but since I’m an idiot, I did it anyway.
Totally worth the four hours of sleep I got.
Contraband (2012)
VERDICT:
4/10 Sticky Bandits
Not as bad as having your head wrapped in duct tape, but it’s still no picnic.
Contraband starts with a kid on a routine smuggling job, a job that unfortunately goes South and forces him to dump a whole bunch of cocaine into the ocean instead of, you know, delivering it to dry land. As you can imagine, cocaine’s kinda hard to snort underwater, so when the kid breaks the news to his pusher, he gets himself a complimentary trip to the hospital. So in steps the kid’s uncle (a notorious ex-smuggler himself) to save the day. Since the kid’s broke as a joke and no one else has an extra $700K they’re looking to get rid of, his uncle starts getting the band back together to pull one last job before calling it quits for good. The stakes are high, and they might not make it back, but like the poster says: “What would you hide to protect your family?”
Deep shit right there.
Apparently this is a remake of an Icelandic movie called Reykjavik-Rotterdam that you nor I have ever heard of, but apparently it was freaking awesome enough to warrant a Hollywood remake. Or maybe it totally sucked. Who really knows why Hollywood makes anything anymore? Either way, this was never something I planned on seeing, but since every other new release on Netflix is back-ordered ’til winter, this is what came in the mail. And because I lose sleep thinking about what you guys would do if left your own devices without reviews to read, I watched it. Such is the gift and curse of running this damn blog.
Anyway, the movie…
The action’s fine, it’s got your mandatory twists and turns to spice things up, and the plot plays out the way it always plays out. It is what it is, and that’s what I was expecting. Although if there’s one thing I was surprised by, it’s all the questions this movie had me asking. For instance:
Question #1: What’s with all the fake accents? J.K. Simmons talks like he’s a deckhand on the Bubba Gump shrimpin’ boat, and Giovanni Ribisi sounds like a nasally-congested, Kentucky-fried meth freak. Why don’t they just talk like they always talk? I don’t really get what these vocal overhauls were supposed to add to their characters, but given that subtlety isn’t exactly this movie’s strong suit, I guess it makes sense? Something tells me I ain’t getting an answer on this one.
But at least the acting is fine. Nothing to write home about, but it suffices for the kind of movie we’re dealing with. Even though he could really afford to stop doing movies like these, Mark Wahlberg is here taking care of business and rockin’ the Southie accent as usual; Kate Beckinsale’s here too; and so are Diego Luna and Lukas Haas. Again, nothing to write home about, but since showing up is half the battle, there ya’ go. The only one here who is worth writing home about (at least in a post script) is Ben Foster as Wahlberg’s right-hand man. Certainly helps that he’s one of the few characters here who talks like a human being, but Ben Foster’s just a solid actor, someone who doesn’t get nearly enough of the credit that he’s due. So thank God he’s here.
Alright…
Question #2: What’s with all the cursing? Little did I know that a side-effect of boat smugglin’ is a real mean case of the Tourettes. Glad I stuck to blogging (side-effects include moderate cursing). As you can tell by this super-enthusiastic review, there wasn’t much here that gelled to my liking, but arguably the strangest thing about this movie is how much time is spent listening to these characters shoot the shit. It’s as though the writers were on some kind of mission to finally show the world how smugglers really talk after years of misrepresentation and lies. The end result is a swear jar filled to the brim with quarters, and unless it’s my fault for not having spent more time on a boat/leading a life of crime, it sounds far more excessive than it does authentic.
Movies really need to stop swearing for the sake of swearing already.
And lastly…
Question #3: Honestly, who would ever use duct tape as a mask? How was that the option they went with? You’d be better off cutting eye sockets out of your underwear and putting ’em on your head. Way less painful to take off. Ugh, Panamanian drug lords are idiots.
If you watch the trailer, you’ll know what you’re getting out of Contraband. I wouldn’t call it a bad movie, but “grating” seems pretty accurate. One of those special movies that I actually started to forget about while I was watching it, and that’s just no good. For all the better heist movies, action movies, and Mark Wahlberg movies that are already out there, I really don’t get why someone would actively seek this out. What can I say, the whole “what if Michael Corleone had been a smuggler!” schtick just ain’t cutting it for me. The upside is that you could always do worse, but then again, that’s no reason to lower your standards.
Bernie (2012)
VERDICT:
8/10 Local Heroes
Only in the South…
Bernie is the true story of one Bernie Tiede: a funeral director from the great city of Carthage, TX. Ask anyone who knew him and they’ll tell you about one hell of a guy. Doesn’t matter how you kicked the bucket, he made you look good, and long before your time was up, he just made you feel good, like you were the most important person in all of Texas. It was the ’90s, everyone liked Bernie, and Bernie liked everyone. Eventually, Bernie took a liking to a little old widow named Marjorie Nugent, and Marjorie Nugent took a liking to him. It was the ’90s, everyone hated Marjorie Nugent, and Marjorie Nugent hated everyone…except for Bernie. They traveled the world together, they tore through her bank account together, and some may say that they even got “friendly” together (jury’s still out on that one). But somewhere down the line, things went sour. Their love turned ugly, Bernie went from a companion to a prisoner, and then, one day, Bernie just snapped.
Don’t you just love these kinds of stories? The ones that happen right in our backyards, that come and go from the public eye like a fart in the wind, only to be completely reborn years later in a movie or a book? It’s the kind of story that makes you wonder why you’ve never heard of it before, and why it wasn’t a bigger deal at the time when it was actually playing out. They’re the kind of stories that usually get reserved for documentaries, and in a lot of ways, that’s actually what Bernie‘s going for.
See, half of the story is told through testimonials from the citizens of Carthage, people vouching for how swell Bernie was and how awful Marjorie was, going of their interactions with them around town. This is the half that makes it a dark comedy instead of just a dark, depressing, “Why did I pay to see this?” kinda movie. And let me tell ya’, these folks are characters, man, characters with some colloquialisms. How about, “That woman walked around with her nose so high, she could have drowned in a rainstorm.” Or better yet, “That woman would tear you a new three-bedroom, two-bath, double-wide asshole just for nothin’.” They sure don’t talk like that in New England, and boy how I wish they did. But aside from being the comedic relief, they’re the reason this movie feels real, like a documented community bombshell rather than an isolated incident starring some mustachioed fella down the street.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until later that I realized the interviewees were all in fact professional actors, which definitely took away from the authenticity of it all, but still, quite an inspired approach on writer/director Richard Linklater’s part, one that adds a great deal of humanity and humor to the mix.
The other half of the story is told in your everyday, straightforward narrative. Meet Bernie Tiede, watch him schmooze over the grieving D.L.O.L.’s (Dear Little Old Ladies) of Carthage, watch him “court” Marjorie, watch things go downhill. Might not sound all that special from the outset, but that’s where Jack Black comes in.
Now, when some folks hear that Jack Black’s in a new movie, they drop what they’re doing and skip on over to the local monsterplex. When other folks hear that Jack Black’s in a new movie, they break out the pitchforks and march through town screaming “BURN THE WITCH!” He’s a very divisive fellow that Jack Black, and what’s hilarious is that he’s loved and hated for all the same reasons: he’s always on, he’s always at 11, and he’s always, always channeling the D. And while I tend to be the skipping type in these matters – mainly ’cause no one does “Let’s Get It On” like he does – I can understand the mob mentality.
So the double-edged sword of Black’s performance as Bernie is that he’s really just doing the same stuff he always does. Singing, dancing, walking like a penguin for two hours – the works. But for everyone who just read that and wrote this movie off entirely, you gotta trust me on this one, because this time it’s different. This time he’s calmer, more toned-down, more “light in the loafers” than we’re used to, and it goes a long way. He really does become Bernie, someone noticeably different than the J.B. we’re used to, and when you hear the Carthage townfolk talking about him, you see their observations reflected in the performance. Bernie Tiede comes across as such a fantastic, eccentric individual to begin with, and it’s because of Black that he’s that much easier to watch and sympathize with. Not counting High Fidelity, this may very well be the best role of his career. Easily the best thing he’s done in years. Even better than The Cable Guy.
Matthew McConaughey is also fantastic as District Attorney Danny Buck, and Shirley McLaine is fine, if not forgettable, as Miss Nugent. I’m telling you, Matthew McConaughey could be so damn good if he could just stop taking all these pretty boy roles that keep coming his way. Maybe someday…
But the most interesting thing about Bernie – the real reason it got an 8 – is the way it keeps getting better as the plot progresses. The First Act is enjoyable, the Second Act is when things start coming together, and the Final Act is what drives it all home. The Final Act is why Bernie Tiede got a movie. Was hoping I could avoid having to mention this, but (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE TRAILER) Bernie Tiede, in a rare moment of weakness, goes and kills Miss Nugent with four slugs to the back one fine morning. So when the town finds out about it, not only can no one believe that Bernie of all people was the one who iced her, but since Bernie’s so loved and Miss Nugent’s so hated, they all take the murderer’s side.
Even more interesting is the way it works on the audience. Just like the townies, you get to love Bernie, you get to loathe Marjorie, and even though he shot an old lady in the back and all, you totally want him to get away with it. I mean, what’s the big deal? After all, it’s not like he’s some sort of deviant, you can hardly blame the guy for losing it, and it’s not like the world couldn’t use less Marjories, am I right? The man’s doing us a favor, dammit! Trial dismissed.
I know, sounds cold, but that’s what’s so great about the Final Act. Although as effective as it is, it’s only effective because it tells one side of the story. You go along with it because it happens to be a good one-sided story, but alas, testimonies from fake townies aren’t enough to justify what an evil crone Miss Nugent’s made out to be.
All the same, one-sided or not, Bernie‘s a total trip. The more I keep thinking about it, the more I seem to like. Aside from Black’s performance and all the Southern-fried insults to boot, it’s just a great, bizarre, American story about the fickle line between right and wrong. Can’t remember the last time I saw a movie that was structured like this either. Fun stuff all around, really.
God, that sounds weird.
P.S.: That must be one of the worst Photoshop jobs I’ve ever seen on a poster. Seriously, zoom in on that shit. Yikes.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
VERDICT:
9/10 Rockwell Redemptions
And that, boys and girls, is how Wes Anderson redeemed himself.
Moonrise Kingdom is about two kids growing up on a New England island town in the ’60s. One of them is a girl, prone to fits of rage and misunderstood by her lawyer parents. One of them is a boy scout (or khaki scout, rather): a true romantic, an orphan, outcasted by his peers and legal guardians. As their pen pal relationship starts to blossom into first love, they decide to run away together. So the boy leaves camp under the cover of night and the girl follows suit with the rest of the town hot on their trail.
Boy, it sure is a funny relationship I’ve had with Wes Anderson over the years. Not that I know him on a personal level, I bet he’s all class, but as someone who once had The Royal Tenenbaums in his Top Ten, let’s just say the thrill had gone for a while there. Didn’t much care for The Life Aquatic, quickly developed what some might call a hatred for The Darjeeling Limited, and it wasn’t until Fantastic Mr. Fox that I started getting those warm, fuzzy feelings again. But not counting how fantastic Mr. Fox was, the cold, hard truth is that it’s been 11 years since I’ve enjoyed a live-action Wes Anderson movie. Makes me sad just thinking about it.
But then along comes Moonrise Kingdom, and just like that, the streak is broken. Life is good again, order has been restored. Although the weird thing about it is nothing much has changed.
Most notable is that this is the most Wes Anderson-looking movie that Wes Anderson’s ever made. His style is so refined at this point that you could pick it out of a crowd the way you could pick out a Picasso at the Met. If you’ve seen a Wes Anderson movie, you know what I’m talking about, so rather than bore us all to tears by going over all the things that make his movies look the way they do, I’ll say this: if Norman Rockwell had turned to film instead of canvas, this is the movie he’d make. It’s a vibe that couldn’t have been captured past the Kennedy/Eisenhower years, and from a stylistic standpoint, it just makes sense. Anderson’s been dressing his characters in Rockwell Wear for ages, so why not send them back to an era where they fit in? After all, they can’t call you a hipster if that’s just how people dress (write that one down). Everything from the colors to the costumes, the carefully selected cast to their comically real characters, it all feels so nostalgically American, so fitting for the pure, endearing story at hand. Folks, at the sake of sounding like a guy who spends his weekend picking out Picassos at the Met, this is what you call a walking, talking work of art, the kind you’d hang up on a wall if you could. Even if you somehow don’t like anything else this movie has to offer, at least you can just sit there and enjoy how damn pretty is.
Anyway, you get the idea. In addition to how unmistakably “Wes Anderson” it looks, there’s also the way it sounds. As per usual, deadpan’s the name of the game, and as per usual, I just love how deadpan it is. Again, nothing new for Wes Anderson, but it does seem new for some reason. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to directors who mistake shouting matches and waterworks for human emotion, or maybe it’s been a while since Anderson’s pulled it off so well. Whatever it is, it’s refreshing how much gets conveyed through such muted performances. I mean, right from the get-go, everyone’s got that “staring contest” look on their faces like they’re all business all the time. It really shouldn’t work, because carrying on a real-life conversation with these human golems would freak me the hell out, but when they deliver their lines, they make it their own. It’s just such a unique approach, and it’s incredibly effective at making these characters seem more interesting and eccentric than they probably would be under someone else’s direction. A large amount of credit does go to the way Anderson and Roman Coppola develop these characters on paper, along with their knack for writing deadpan dialogue, but it’s the actors who really tie it all together.
Which leads us to the cast…
First, there’s your regulars. The one true god that is Bill Murray is fantastic as Suzy’s dad, and there’s also a great cameo from a Wes Anderson legend that I’ll leave you to discover on your own. Aaand…that does it. When I started writing this, I actually thought there’d be a bigger list, but lo and behold, those are the regulars. As for the newcomers though, Ed Norton is priceless as beleaguered Scout Master Ward (why on Earth doesn’t he do more stuff?); Tilda Swinton is enjoyable as Social Services; so is Frances McDormand as Suzy’s mom; Bob Balaban is surprisingly awesome as the Narrator; and I seriously don’t know what took so long for Bruce Willis to take a role like this. Remember how good Stallone was in Cop Land? No? I’m the only one? Well, the great thing about Cop Land was how Stallone transformed his usual tough guy role by playing it down for once instead of going all Lincoln Hawk on us. Well after taking the same damn roles in the same damn movies for almost the last three decades of his career, here’s B.W. as a small-town, mild-mannered John McClane in flood pants, and wouldn’t you know, it’s one of the best things he’s ever done. Amazing what happens when you stop shooting your way through plot lines, hope he comes to the same realization before The Expendables 3 gets green-lit.
But the real stars here are the kids, both of whom have never been in a movie before, which is insane. Our Scout escaped is Sam, and he’s played by Jared Gilman. Our “disturbed” daughter is Suzy, and she’s played by Kara Hayward. I love everything about these kids. I love Gilman’s lisp, I love Hayward’s piercing eyes, I love the way they seem so natural around each other, I love how simultaneously innocent and mature they are. They look the part, they act the part, and they make it so easy to root for their characters, to instantly sympathize with the adventure they’re on and why they embarked on it in the first place. There are actually a bunch of kids in this movie, all of whom are great for that matter, but Gilman and Hayward are the bedrocks.
Seriously. Love those kids.
Now, I’m white, so it’s kind of in my nature that I like Wes Anderson, but still, I get that he’s not for everyone. After all (and I think I’ve mentioned this before), word on the street is that Ben Stiller once broke up with a girl because she “didn’t get” Rushmore. Not to mention that the first thing out of my dad’s mouth when I told him I saw this was, “Is it weird?” And even though no, it’s not, it’s still a Wes Anderson movie, inside and out. But coming from a prodigal fan, if ever there were a movie to convince you of everything that people love about Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom is it.
I’ve tried not to overuse the word here, but this is a beautiful movie to watch and a beautiful movie to experience. Such an inspired, fantastically-told, universal story about the lengths we’ll go to for love that’s as funny as it is heartfelt. Man, I could rant more than I already have, but to me, this one’s a no-brainer, even for the skeptics. When I walked out of that theater, I floated out; smiling like an idiot, high on life, making calls to see who would see it with me again. I watch a lot of movies (too many, some might say), and at the end of the day, it’s movies like these that keep me coming back.
There really is something wonderful about young love, isn’t there? Puts things into perspective for all us grown-up types.
And the best Paul Newman movie is…
COOL HAND LUKE!
Just look at him there, with that old Luke smile.
Honestly, what’s not to love about Paul Newman? He’s one of the greatest actors of all-time, he was a model human being to boot, and best of all, the man’s got a drinking holiday named after him. Sounds like a personal hero to me.
Not sure what took me so long to get this poll going, but swell voting all the same.
Hell of a movie, hell of a guy.
RESULTS:
– Cool Hand Luke: 10 votes
– Slap Shot: 4 votes
– Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid: 3 votes
– Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: 2 vote (never seen it, I feel shame)
– The Sting: 2 votes
– The Verdict: 2 votes
– Nobody’s Fool: 1 vote (never seen it, I feel shame)
– The Hustler: 1 vote (criminally low amount of votes for one of the greatest movies ever made)
– The Color of Money: 1 vote
– Cars: 1 vote (kid, there’s too much swearing on this site for you)
– Somebody Up There Likes Me: 0 votes (never seen it, I feel shame)
– The Long, Hot Summer: 0 votes
– Sometimes a Great Notion: 0 votes (never seen it, I feel shame)
– Absence of Malice: 0 votes (never seen it, I feel shame)
– Road to Perdition: 0 votes
The Dictator (2012)
VERDICT:
5/10 Deaths to the West
Well, at least he got to dump ashes on Seacrest.
The Dictator is about a tyrannical…wait for it…dictator from the fictional North African, oil-rich country of Wadiya. He is the law, he loves oppressing his people, he’s developing a nuclear program for “research purposes only” – he’s like Putin, Gadaffi, and Ahmadinejad all rolled into one, only hairier. Aside from the loneliness that his doubles tennis partner Kim Jong-Il knew all too well, life is good for Admiral General Aladeen…until the UN threatens to take military action against him. So he heads off to New York City to address their concerns in person, but then gets kidnapped and stripped of his beard/power by his jealous uncle. With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, he gets taken under the wing of a tree-hugging health food store owner and slowly comes to realize the error of his ways, all while trying to regain his former glory with the help of a nuclear scientist he thought he killed.
So, after taking on racist hillbillies and he-man women-hating frat jocks, then getting Paula Abdul to use day laborers as La-Z-Boys, Sacha Baron Cohen has finally made the leap to war criminals, terrorists, and all the crazy hijinks that go with them. Regardless of your thoughts on the subject matter, let’s not kid ourselves, it was only a matter of time. Nothing is sacred for Sacha Baron Cohen.
It’s his first fully-scripted movie since Ali G Indahouse that doesn’t rely on the reactions of others to make us all laugh, and as much as it sometimes works, it almost makes you wish that Borat never happened. See, the beauty of Borat (and Da’ Ali G Show for that matter) was that nobody knew it was Sacha Baron Cohen behind the mustache and mankini, and even if the disguise failed, it wouldn’t matter since no one knew who the hell Sacha Baron Cohen was anyway. Thanks to the power of anonymity, we got one of the funniest movies (and shows) of the past decade that was shamelessly politically incorrect and put a mirror up to some of the more embarrassingly intolerant turds that America had to offer. But no thanks whatsoever to the powers of overnight fame, not even the makeup crew from The Walking Dead could hide Cohen’s 6’3″ frame from doing what he does best: letting people make asses of themselves.
And things just haven’t been the same since.
Even as someone who liked Bruno more than most (come on, that focus group scene was unreal), a key factor to Cohen’s success had been lost with no chance of recovery outside of filming in an Amish community. So this is the format we’re left with, and this movie suffers for it as a result. Luckily, Cohen has some writing talent, but I still can’t help but feel bad for the guy. Imagine if you were a stand-up comedian, someone who makes a habit of killing it on the nightly, but then a day comes when you realize you can only do a fraction of your act because the crowd knows how all your best joke are gonna end. The only option is to keep on trucking and try something new, and even though the crowd’s still laughing, you know as well as they do that it just doesn’t compare to the old stuff. It’s not like Cohen’s fallen on hard times or anything, but it still sucks.
Overall, this was a weird experience for me. I laughed a couple times, I smiled through most of it, and it sounded like the rest of the theater were having themselves a hootenanny from beginning to end. But all the while, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it could have been so much more. With the state of the world being what it is, a world where someone like Bashar Hafez al-Assad can rule over Syria, doing whatever evil shit he pleases without so much as a slap on the wrist, you’d think this material would write itself. Sometimes it does, like when a powerless Aladeen delivers a baby, then asks for a trashcan when he realizes it’s a girl. Unfortunately though, that truly is just some of time. Most of the time is spent on running gags that weren’t funny the first time (e.g.: making up fake, Arabic-sounding words; highlighting all the ways Anna Faris’ physical appearance disgusts Aladeen; Aladeen ordering people to be executed; etc.), and the rest felt like randomness for the sake of randomness, and shock for the sake of shock.
And the worst part is, all the best scenes are in the trailer. Yes, it is one of those situations, and it is a bummer.
I don’t know, it’d be one thing if it the humor was smarter or didn’t settle for so many cheap, gross-out yuks, but it never quite gets there. It tries to about five minutes before the end credits when Cohen gets on a soapbox and starts listing the ways that America is just as much of a dictatorship as Wadiya, only it comes way too suddenly and way too late to come off as anything but preachy. Not trying to say that this is some pretty base shit from beginning to end, it’s just that Cohen can do better. And maybe it’s just me, but it’s still too soon to be using 9/11 as a punchline.
It occurs to me that this review might sound like a borderline eulogy for the guy, but I can’t help it, and it’s a fucking shame. Folks, this is how it all starts. This is the road that led Adam Sandler to Grown Ups. His performance is fine, it’s just overdone and nothing special; Anna Faris is sold short as the token love interest/comedic punching bag; Ben Kingsley’s in it for some reason; and so are John C. Reilly and Megan Fox briefly. The funniest guy here is actually Jason Mantzoukas as Aladeen’s former nuclear scientist, but I don’t think anyone’s seeing this thing for Jason Mantzoukas (no offense to the Mantzoukas family, who should be very proud). I mean, no one’s bad here, but no one’s really good though either.
All the same, I was kind of surprised at how moderately excited I was to see The Dictator. I wasn’t for a while there, mainly because I knew deep down that I was setting myself up for disappointment, although after the Seacrest stunt, I felt the least I could do was give Cohen 13 bucks as a high-ten of sorts. It’s not without its laughs, and I’d probably give that Verdict a boost if Cohen hadn’t set the bar so high for himself, but truth be told, I got a bigger kick out of the three-minute trailer for Ted than I did the 83 minutes that followed.
And I don’t even like Family Guy.
The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
VERDICT:
8/10 Save the Dates
So this Stoller/Segel arrangement seems to be working out just fine.
The Five-Year Engagement is about a happy American guy who pops the question to his happy British girlfriend. She says “Jolly good,” he says “Right on,” and just like that, they start planning their wedding. At first, things are looking good. He’s gearing up to be the head chef of a swank new restaurant in Cali, she’s applying to grad schools nearby, love is in the air. But then she doesn’t get in to any of those conveniently-located West Coast schools, instead gets into the University of Michigan for a two-year program, and like the good fiancee he is, her beau gives up his culinary dreams to follow her up North. So they postpone the wedding and try to make things work as their careers butt heads, as their grandparents keep dying, and as everyone else starts getting hitched before them.
Man, nothing about that poster or that title made me want to see this movie. Never really cared for anything Emily Blunt’s ever done, certainly don’t care for that boring-ass couch pose they’ve got going on, and as great as Bridesmaids was, did anyone actually see it for the producers? Aside from still barely understanding what a producer even does outside of hemorrhage Benjamins, that seems like a stretch as far as plugs go. That’s like going to see Battleship because it’s “From Hasbro, the company that brought you Transformers.” Anyway, not a good start, but it’s not my fault they didn’t just slap Nicholas Stoller’s name up there in the first place.
See, when Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel get together, wonderful things happen. The Muppets, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek (no Segel, but that’s okay), and now this. In light of these home runs, I think we can chalk up Gulliver’s Travels as a mulligan. But as much as I can roll my eyes at the marketing wizards who promoted this thing, it was actually kinda nice being surprised by Stoller’s and Segel’s involvement. If anything, being out of the loop did a bang-up job of lowering my expectations, and there’s really nothing like walking into a movie you aren’t crazy to see, only to find yourself laughing harder and smiling wider as your mental Verdict keeps rising. Let’s just say that this one reached the big 8 pretty fast.
The laughs are rampant regardless of gender and the cast is awesome from front to back, but what really clicked with me was the story. I just got married four months ago, and now I’ll be moving to Vermont for two years because my wife just got accepted to a grad school program that she worked her ass off to get into. The parallel isn’t identical since I’m not leaving a dream job and am actually pretty stoked to be heading North, but it’s damn close. As a result, I was on the level with Tom and Violet, to a bizarrely relatable degree really. It was like I was Tom, my wife was Violet, and the stuff they were going through was the stuff we were right in the thick of. Unless I just need to do my homework, it ain’t often that I get so empathetic towards romcom couples, and that went a long way. Sure, the story’s predictable to a degree given the title and the way these movies always end up, but it does have its fair share of unforeseen plot and character developments that kept things far more interesting than I had expected.
Although if there’s one similarity between this and Bridesmaids, it’s that one of the better date movies I’ve seen in recent memory. If there are two similarities between this and Bridesmaids, it’s a funny female lead. Outside of John Krazinski, I don’t think there are a whole lot of people could have vouched for Emily Blunt’s comedic chops up until now. Such is life when you’re stuck playing British royals every year. But despite the uphill battle of having little to no comedic experience on her resume and acting alongside an entire cast of individuals who have all proven themselves worthy on the very successful and very funny network TV shows that they all currently star in, she rises to the occasion ends up being one of the funniest of the bunch. It’s just fantastic to see her loosen up and come across so natural as Victoria. It suits her perfectly, she’s got great comedic timing to boot, and it’s clearly evident that she’s enjoying herself as much as we’re enjoying her. Going off of the Emily Blunt we all knew and weren’t quite sure about, this is a freakin’ sea change of a transformation that’s better late than never and a delight to take in.
And Jason Segel’s great as Tom. Thought I was getting a bit Segel’d-out since How I Met Your Mother got syndicated, but really, what’s not to like about Jason Segel? Outrageously likeable as always, he has a really genuine chemistry with Blunt, and he’s funny as hell. Yup, the same old Jason Segel, and that’s just fine by me.
Alison Brie also has her moments as Violet’s sister, but she, along with everyone else for that matter, more or less gets overshadowed by Chris Pratt as Tom’s best friend. Dude is operating on another level of funny, but that’s not exactly news, at least for me it’s not. I don’t care if you’ve seen it already, go watch Parks and Rec. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen, and for a cast that’s without equal, I think it says a lot that Pratt is a personal favorite. So to all the Andy Dwyer fans out there, can I get an “Amen?”
Oh, and bonus points for the crap ton of choice cameos and bit roles that turn up.
I’m usually not one to shoot down the opinions of others when it comes to movies (everything else though, I will shoot you the hell down!), but I’m pretty dumbfounded by all the ho-hum reactions this movie’s been getting. Granted, had certain aspects of Tom and Violet’s relationship not come across as a mirror image of what’s going on in my own relationship, I probably wouldn’t be as enthusiastic had I been, say, single and playing Diablo III in my mother’s basement (not that there’s anything wrong with that, ’cause I’ve totally been there). But from where I was sitting, I had a grand old time with The Five-Year Engagement, and so did the wife. What can I say, good date movies are hard to find, so when a great one comes along, I just call ’em like I see ’em.
Was damn certain she was gonna owe me one for this. And that, dear readers, is why the missus wears the pants…
Kill List (2012)
VERDICT:
7/10 Pyramid Schemes
If David Lynch made The Usual Suspects…
Kill List is about a British army vet who tries playing the family man to his wife and kid, yet struggles to support them financially. Before long, the bills are piling up and he and his wife are at each other’s throats – largely due in part to his shit temper. So when one of his old army buddies offers him a quick, lucrative “job,” he reticently accepts and gets to doing what he does best. But as they make their way from one hit to the next, things start getting weird. Really weird. Eventually they realize that no amount of money’s worth whatever it is they’re involved in, but since their employers won’t have it, they continue forward to wherever it is they’re being led.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write about this movie, ’cause it’s been a good three or four months since I actually sat down and watched it. I blame video games: the reason I’ve always procrastinated at anything in life. Anyhow, letting your memories simmer for an entire season usually isn’t the best approach when trying to recall anything ever, but this one’s an exception. Even if I didn’t have an idiot-savant memory bank for movies, even if I forgot how to eat without drooling, Kill List would be vivid.
For starters, it’s a tough movie to define. It’s not a hitman story, it’s not a horror thriller, and it’s not a broken family drama; it’s something very much in between. Hopefully that wasn’t a surprise I just ruined, but even without the heads up, it doesn’t take the keenest of eyes to see that something funky’s going on beneath the surface. Why is that chick carving a bootleg Deathly Hallows symbol on the back of that mirror? Why did that dude smile before getting a bullet to the brain? Was that a blood pact? Pretty sure that was a blood pact. Do people actually do business like that? No, witches do business like that. Great. This isn’t gonna turn out well.
Questions like these are rampant in Kill List, and the answers are rarely found. It’s a movie where things just happen, bizarre things void of explanation or justification, and it’s actually because of that approach that it all works as well as it does. It’s kind of like Lost in a sense. A lot of people who hated Lost are the ones still wondering why there wasn’t a scientific explanation for the Smoke Monster. A lot of the people who adored Lost are the ones who learned to stop questioning and love the ride. Being a proud member of the latter fraternity, I couldn’t help but dig it.
But that’s not to say that Kill List is for everyone. It’s not all that scary in the crap-your-pants sense of the word, and there’s not much in the way of action or thrills either. More than anything, this one’s about the mood.
Some horror movies fail because they create a mystery and come up with a bullshit explanation to support it (lookin’ at you, The Happening), or they just have a good idea and don’t know where to go with it. What writer/director Ben Wheatley does is take a strong, genre-bending premise, then makes it better by keeping the audience on the same need-to-know basis as his characters, all of whom know dick. This may very well frustrate those looking a more “traditional” horror movie, but the best thing you can ever do when making a horror movie is to show and tell as little as humanly possible. It’s just rare and refreshing to find a movie that wants people to wonder “What the fuck is going on?” and keeps it that way ’til the end. It’s all about the mood, and the mood is freakin’ chilling.
The only real hiccup with Kill List is our protagonist Jay, played by Neil Maskell. The great thing about Jay is that he’s a very troubled fellow with a whole bunch of inner demons in need of exorcising. Despite all his efforts to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his son, he’s a soldier to the core, longing for battle. He’s messed up and he’s probably got good reason for being so damn volatile all the time. The unfortunate thing about Jay is that he’s often blinded by his fits of rage, blinded to the point where you wonder if anyone could actually be that angry. Given his circumstances and some of the shit he witnesses, it doesn’t really make sense for him to keep barreling down his path of destruction, if only for self-preservation’s sake. Maybe it’s just me, but if some guy started thanking me right as I was about to thump his skull in with a tack hammer, I’d cut my losses and leave town lickety-split.
As a result, there are times when Jay borders on being a horror cliche, the kind of character that you can’t help but scream at because of all the dumb shit he keeps doing. But what ultimately saves him from this fate is that brooding sense of the unknown, that even if he wanted to escape, his fate has already been written by a power that he, nor us, can truly comprehend. It’s hard to say much else because there’s only so much that’s revealed, but it’s eerie as all hell and makes for a handy little sidestep around one of horror’s biggest pitfalls.
The thick British accents can be a chore to decipher, and the ending’s also a bit much, but, lord, if Kill List isn’t one of the more unnerving movies I’ve seen in quite some time. Aside from having one of the most jaw-droppingly violent murder scenes ever put to celluloid, there’s a lot about this movie that stuck with me for longer than I thought it would. Solid cast, inspired premise, and a really fantastic execution makes Aiden a happy man. There’s a lot of purpose and intention in the way Wheatley put this together, and while I didn’t really know what to think by the end, something tells me that was the whole point.
Explanations, shmexplanations.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012)
VERDICT:
5/10 Shrim Cocktails
Fire up that crack pipe.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is about two friends named Tim and Eric who are given a billion dollars to make a movie. Why? Who knows. But instead of delivering on their agreement, they end up making a three minute movie called Diamond Jim after spending the rest of their money on life gurus, diamond suits, new teeth – you name it. The producers of Diamond Jim are none too happy about this, so Tim and Eric decide to raise the money they blew by becoming the new owners of a decrepit mall. As they rebuild the mall through their new company Dobis (short for “Doing Business”), they find themselves fending off wolves, falling in love, and struggling to make that billion before their old producers find out where they ran off to.
You don’t need to know much about Tim and Eric to know that these two guys are…off. The trailer explains it all really. They specialize in a strange that only gets stranger, and only on Adult Swim, the birthplace of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, could they make a living and find a fanbase.
But since I am a twenty-something male nerd, it just so happens that I love Adult Swim, love Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and love Tim and Eric. The time I’ve wasted surfing through Tim and Eric clips on YouTube is nothing short of inordinate, but since I nearly choked on my tongue from laughing in the process, I’d say it was time well spent. It’s hard to sum up what it is about these guys that somehow landed them a movie deal, but they sure do have a different sense of humor.
For example, a brief list of Tim and Eric’s “signature” gags:
– Lots of squishing sound effects, regardless of relevance, always amplified to maximum. If it exists, it squishes.
– Casting actors – typically of the elderly/”something’s-not-right-with-that-person” sort – in recurring roles, despite complete lack of acting experience.
– Making weird faces, making them often.
– Intentionally mispronouncing/inventing words.
– Good ol’ diarrhea.
If this doesn’t sound like your kind of humor, then just trust me that it most definitely isn’t. Between Eric getting a Prince Albert and Tim rolling around in a G-string with a dildo on his forehead, things get pretty gross pretty fast and don’t cool down. Some people won’t get it, some people will, but even for Tim and Eric fans, it certainly tests the limits of decency. I mean, this is old hat for Tim and Eric. It’s not like they finally started whipping out the diarrhea jokes once their movie got green-lit. The only real difference now is that they get to curse and can do just about anything with all the dildos they want.
Hooray?
The good thing is that I was prepared for this stuff, and, oddly enough, the shock factor ended up being more of a pro than a con. But for the uninitiated, it’ll be about as much fun as the Ludovico Technique. The truth of the matter is that some things are just better in 30-minute bursts than two-hour stretches. Since the whole damn movie is nonsense, it does lose its appeal after a while, and if you’re not on board from the get-go, there’s not much here that’ll make you want to stay. Unless you have a movie review blog, then you’ll have to stick it out.
Like I said, the humor here is beyond strange, and I am absolutely at a loss as to how Tim and Eric got so many noteworthy actors to join in on the “fun.” Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Will Forte, and Zach Galifianakis are T & E regulars, but I wish Robert Loggia and William Atherton had stayed under their rocks instead of resurfacing for this. It’s just…sad to watch these classic character actors submit themselves to such truly bizarre lengths. It’d be one thing if they got laughs for their efforts, but since that ain’t happening, you just feel bad for them. Poor, poor Robert Loggia and William Atherton. This is no way to make a comeback.
Ugh…
If you asked me a year ago, I’d say that Tim and Eric were the future of comedy. Now, I think they might have shot themselves in the feet.
All the same, I still think they’re hilarious and I laughed at their movie more than I would care to admit. The real problem is that I can think of maybe one or two people that I could actually recommend this to. Burnouts and drunkards are gonna eat this up faster than a Dorit0-shelled taco, but humanity in general won’t be anywhere near as receptive. Not that the quality of any movie should be grounded in how many people will like it, it just becomes an issue when you worry about suggesting it to people who would like it. I wish I had better news to report, but Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is far too much of a good thing.
Doesn’t mean I’ll stop watching those YouTube clips though.
600th REVIEW, YO!
THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!
And the best Alien movie is…
ALIEN!
They’ve been showing this on HBO like gangbusters lately, and let me tell ya’, folks, it is still friggin’ incredible. Been seriously amped for Prometheus as of late, so I figured I’d see where y’all stood on the matter.
And who am I kidding, Aliens is friggin’ incredible, too.
Game over, man. Game over.
RESULTS:
– Alien: 12 votes
– Aliens: 10 votes
– “AVP!!!”: 1 vote
– “AVP (LOL/JK)”: 1 vote (agreed)
– E.T.: 1 vote (taking some liberties with the poll there)
– “Does the spoof they do in Spaceballs count?”: 1 vote (why the hell not?)
Still haven’t seen the other two direct Alien sequels. Worth checking out, or shall I continue to live my life?
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 